


Outreach Efforts

by Fairfaxleasee



Series: Cullen/Lyta [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blackmail, F/M, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairfaxleasee/pseuds/Fairfaxleasee
Summary: Lyta Adaar tries to make her way back to the Inquisition after surviving the avalanche at Haven and manages to put her foot in the exact wrong place.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford & Solas, Female Adaar/Cullen Rutherford, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Series: Cullen/Lyta [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141982
Kudos: 1





	Outreach Efforts

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @blondetexan and @xqueen0fhellx for betaing
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at https://fairfaxleasee.tumblr.com/

Lyta Adaar tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. She’d been doing that for hours and wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to keep it up; either the snow she was trudging through was getting deeper or her legs were getting heavier. And she couldn’t say she was particularly invested in the activity.

She wouldn’t even have bothered doing it in the first place if she didn’t want to make sure her cat was okay. She’d handed Xemmy to someone (she couldn’t honestly recall who) in the initial chaos of the evacuation of Haven when they’d seen the torches heading for them. She’d stayed behind along with a few others in order to try to cover the escape. She stayed longer than the rest when it became obvious that the… thing that was leading the attack was there for her and the Anchor. 

She’d managed to force it to retreat by using the last trebuchet to bring the avalanche down on Haven proper, which made the entire fiasco a pyrrhic victory at best. And as she’d been in Haven herself at the time, the avalanche came down on her too. She’d been trying to work her way back to her cat, who should be with the rest of the surviving members of the Inquisition, since she’d come to in some sort of ice cave.

She’d seen some fire pits along her way, so she was following  _ someone _ and she couldn’t imagine anyone other than the Inquisition would be traipsing through the mountains right now. But all the pits she’d come across had been nothing but cold ashes when she got to them. She was cold, now that she thought about it. And tired. And… what was it she was walking for anyway?

She stopped walking and considered sitting down to rest. Not for long, just until she could remember what she was doing. She was just about to when she saw something that looked like smoke just over the horizon. If it was smoke, she thought she’d like sitting by the fire better than sitting where she was; and if she got closer and it wasn’t smoke, she could just sit down there. Didn’t matter to her much.

Lyta started up the hill in front of her heading directly towards what she thought was the smoke. As she got closer, she could hear voices, so she started moving faster. She had a bit of trouble with the grade she’d found herself on so changed her path slightly away from the smoke and the voices so she could continue up where it wasn’t quite as steep. When she topped the rise she was disappointed to see that she was about as far away from things as when she’d first spotted them, but at least now that she was level with them she could see the glow from the fires and people moving in front of them. She let the thought that she had found  _ something _ spur her on.

As she got closer, she heard the people beginning to shout. Calls of “It’s the Herald!” and “The Herald’s here!” became more abundant as she approached the camp, but she was either still too far away or just too tired to recognize the voices. She saw a small group of figures running in her direction. She considered just sitting down and waiting for them, but she didn’t think she’d be able to get back up again once she sat down so she kept stumbling towards them.

Until she heard the crack. And suddenly her right foot wasn’t standing on anything anymore.

_ Fuck! _

She must have wandered onto some sort of ice sheet and trod on a weak spot. She’d managed to lean far enough forward that the upper part of her body was still on solid ice (although just how long it would  _ stay _ solid wasn’t something she wanted to speculate about), but her legs were dangling over nothing. It was possible that whatever space was below her wasn’t that deep or that she was in one of the narrow casims that mountain ranges had, but knowing her luck lately, she doubted it. And she didn’t want to try kicking her legs too far because she was having a hard enough time trying to keep the rest of her out of the hole. And she wasn’t doing a very good job of it given that she could feel herself slipping.

“ _ Herald _ !” A few voices shouted their concern and she saw the shadows begin to move faster. 

But she was slipping faster too. She glanced back towards the hole she was in up to her chest now hoping to see  _ something _ she might be able to use to push herself out of it, but all she could see was her dangling over a black abyss.

“Herald! Take my hand!”

Lyta looked towards Cullen’s voice. But… it  _ couldn’t  _ be Cullen’s voice. Cullen hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t even  _ looked _ at her, since her last training session. The one she couldn’t actually remember, but had landed her in a bed covered in bruises that still hadn’t completely faded.

_ No. That’s not Cullen. I just want it to be. It’s probably some sort of trick, might even be a demon. Or I’m just imagining it. _

She felt a few tears run down her face and she slid back another inch.

“Lyta,  _ please _ !”

_ Wait… he’s never… I don’t know what it sounds like when he says my name. How could I be imagining that? _

She was running out of time to decide. She saw Cullen’s face and reached for his outstretched hand before she realized she was doing it. She still couldn’t quite believe it was actually Cullen’s, but an armored hand clasped hers and began to pull her out of the void. Another hand reached down and grabbed the straps over her back that kept her silverite pauldrons on. She worked out that it was Bull’s when it lifted her not only out of the void but off the ground and slung her over his shoulder.

“You know, Boss; you keep riding me like this and I’m going to start charging you.”

“Umnot… en lemme down! Ikanwak.”

He laughed, “Sorry, Boss. No can do. I may not be a mage, but I’d still rather not have a Templar angry with me for letting you hurt yourself when you collapse on the way to camp.”

“Wat empar’s onnabe…”

She passed out before she finished her question.

\-------------------------------------------

Cullen clenched his fist as he watched Bull carry Lyta back to the makeshift camp. He was just mad at himself for panicking and getting too close to Lyta again. It had nothing to do with him hearing them talking and being jealous that  _ he _ couldn’t talk to her like that anymore.

He shouldn’t have talked to her in the first place. He should have just kept thinking she was yet another mage who assumed she was above the Chantry’s laws. He never would have learned that she had  _ wanted _ to go to a circle, to learn how to control her magic and use it responsibly. That she was an amazing baker because her grandmother had taught her, and had a rapport with just about every animal she met. That she may be awkward and a bit afraid of people, but just underneath that she was sweet, and kind, and funny.

That the Chantry’s laws dictated she be subjected to the Rite of Tranquility.

Laws he swore to himself he’d stop questioning. After what happened in Ferelden. And Kirkwall. And the Conclave.

_ She’s not like them though. _

Cullen turned away from the thought. It was right; Lyta wasn’t like Uldred, out for his own ambitions; or Anders, so angry at the Chantry he wanted the world to burn for it; or whatever monstrosity had led the army that attacked Haven and ripped open the damned sky. Of course, Uldred and Anders could never have managed to cast a spell like Lyta could, abominations or not. Which was why it shouldn’t matter that she wasn’t like them.

Which was why he was so disgusted with himself that it did. Up ‘til now, he’d been able to tell himself that the reason he’d been keeping quiet about what had happened was because they still needed her to close the Breach. But the Breach was gone. And he still had absolutely no intention of telling Cassandra or anyone else about just how inherently,  _ fundamentally _ \- yet to him, immaterially - dangerous Lyta was. He just couldn’t stand the idea of hollowing out her mind, of letting some pale echo of her occupy her body while she was gone forever.

But he was still a Templar, and even if he wasn’t willing to do what he should be, he couldn’t totally ignore the very real possibility of Lyta’s powers getting away from her when she was too exhausted to control them again. He also knew he couldn’t be trusted to be the one around if it happened.

“Rylen!” Cullen called for his second-in-command.

The man hurried over, spurred on by the ire in Cullen’s voice. “Commander?”

“Keep an eye on the Herald until she recovers.”

“Sir?”

“Did I stutter?” He closed on the man and shook a finger in his face. “Keep an eye on the Herald until she recovers! I don’t-” he stopped himself. “We can’t afford any accidents. And we don’t know  _ what _ the Anchor might do now that the Breach is gone.”

“But don’t you usually-”

“I said YOU! Now GO!”

Rylen stood there looking confused and nervous for a few seconds. Cullen was about to lose his patience when Rylen’s nervousness won out and he nodded, then turned and hurried off in the direction Bull had taken Lyta.

“And make sure that idiot Pavus gives her back her cat! Tell him I don’t  _ care _ if it helps him pick up men, I  _ will _ smite him if he tries to keep it!” Cullen yelled to the man’s back.

“And here I was about to scold you for your temper, Commander.”

“Solas.” Cullen turned to glare at the elven apostate. Unlike Lyta, Cullen was  _ sure _ the man knew  _ exactly _ what he was doing, shirking the Circle.

“Why Commander, it’s almost as if you didn’t like me.”

“I don’t.”

Solas grinned at him, “Well then, I guess it’s a very good thing you have to  _ trust _ me, isn’t it?”

Cullen shook his head and turned a bit away from the man. They were the only people who knew what Lyta had done that night, and he didn’t like the idea of Solas knowing  _ either _ of their secrets, let alone both. And the fact that his secret was that he was protecting Lyta’s from everyone, including her, somehow managed to make everything that much worse. “What do you  _ want _ ?”

“I couldn’t just want to ask how Lyta was doing? You were, after all, the first one to reach her. And the one to keep her from falling.”

Cullen’s initial instinct was to snap at the man. Fortunately years of dealing with Cassia Hawke had taught him a thing or two about how to deal with people who were just trying to make you incriminate yourself. “I asked what you wanted; not what you could want.”

Solas narrowed his eyes slightly. “Very true, Commander. In that case, I wanted to make sure you remembered our discussion.”

Cullen just narrowed his eyes. “I remember. But in case you haven’t noticed the Breach is gone.”

“Indeed it is. But that doesn’t seem to matter, does it? Or do you think a Tranquil would care about a cat? I admit, I was under the impression they were incapable of caring about anything.”

Cullen squared his shoulders. Unfortunately, while he had learned ‘don’t say anything that isn’t absolutely necessary’ in his dealings with Hawke, he was never quite able to put it into practice. “I told you I remember. So if that’s all you want-”

“No, Commander, it isn’t  _ all _ I want. I have some things to discuss with Lyta when she wakes up. Things that are for her ears only.”

“...and?”

“And, in case I was insufficiently clear, I would prefer that no one, including Captain Rylen, make any inconvenient attempts to overhear us.”

“Are you-” Cullen seethed at the man's gall, " _ Blackmailing  _ me?"

“Blackmailing you? That is a way you could think about it, I suppose. But what I am doing is irrelevant. The point, Commander, is what  _ you _ are doing. Or in this case, what you are  _ not _ going to do.”

“I could-”

Solas shook his head, “ _ No _ Commander, you couldn’t. Act against me, or my wishes, and certain unfortunate information may begin to circulate. I realize that you may not care about the information about you, but I know you  _ do _ care about the information about her.”

_ Where in Thedas is Cassia Hawke when I need her? _

Cullen didn’t like the thought of asking the Ice Queen for help, but assuming she wasn’t good enough to beat the apostate at his own game she was easily good enough to at least fight him to a draw. And she didn’t care enough about anything other than Fenris to bother to blackmail him over this. It wasn’t like they would decide to team up… was it?

“I hope, Commander, that we have an understanding.” Solas started to walk towards Cullen on his way back to camp.

It was probably a stupid thing to do, but Cullen grabbed the apostate’s arm as he passed. “Leave Lyta out of this!”

Solas stopped and sighed. “I must tell you, Commander, that if you think you are in a position to make demands of me, then you greatly misunderstand the nature of our relationship. However,” Solas turned to face Cullen. “I assure you that I harbor no umbrage nor ill-will towards Lyta. I do not wish to see her come to harm. I would, in fact, prefer she  _ not _ come to harm. Unfortunately, she possesses the anchor and whoever, or whatever, attacked Haven knows she does and wishes to reclaim it. ‘Leaving her out of this’ is simply not an option. As such, and I think you will agree, it is far from ideal that she has refused to continue her training of late; I am confident she will soon be  _ persuaded _ to see the error of her ways. Whether or not she wishes to continue to waste her time with the Enchanter is irrelevant, but she  _ must _ understand that continuing with me is in her best interest.”

Cullen laughed and let go of Solas. “Of course! That’s what we’re here for, right? Lyta’s best interests?”

“I am unsure about you, Commander, but everything I’ve said and asked for tonight  _ is _ in her best interests.”

Cullen allowed Solas to get far enough ahead of him on his way back to the camp that he wouldn’t have to worry about catching up to the man. Or that it would look like they had stayed behind only to speak together. As he walked back, he tried to figure out whether he preferred to think that the last thing Solas had said to him was a lie or the truth.


End file.
